Sorrow
by Briar's EquinoX
Summary: Sodapop's heart is broken and he wants to find Sandy. But there are many obstacles and dangers on the road to true love...
1. Thoughts

Sorrow  
Chapter 1 ~ Thoughts  
  
Sodapop Curtis was depressed. Even after he had made up with Darry and Pony there was still an empty place in his heart they could never fill.   
  
It all started when his parents died in a car accident. That was the same tugging at his heartstrings. The sorrowful yearning for something that had once been and oculd never happen again. Sodapop's heart was broken. And he knew exactly why he was feeling this way but he was trying to ignore it.   
  
Why did that stupid woman have to run away down to Sarasota anyway? Sandy had broken his heart. She said she loved him and he loved her too! But then she left without so much as saying goodbye. Just a little letter in their mailbox saying that their relationship would never work and that she was moving to Sarasota Florida to live with her grandmother.  
  
But she was wrong! Soda knew that they had something. They loved each other, for god's sake! Wasn't that enough? But he supposed it wasn't. People who said money made the world go around were right. It was all because he was poor, because he dropped out of school to work at a gas station, because he didn't live on the right side of town! Sandy was just some stupid Soc!   
  
Thinking this made Soda angry and anger was good because it took his mind off the hurt that he was feeling. He would fall into a rage of white hot anger. He just wanted to tear everything to shreds and pound the walls down! But after his madness subsided he still felt the same hurt and even though he was ashamed to admit it; he wanted her, he needed her, and he was still very much in love with Sandy.  
  
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Please R/R! I know it doesn't have much plot right now but if I get positive reviews I'll add the next few chapters where Soda takes matters into his own hands! 


	2. Journeys

Sorrow  
Chapter 2 ~ Journeys  
  
Sodapop had come to a decision after a lot of thinking. He would go and find Sandy and win her over to be his. The hole at his heart was eating away at him. He knew that he and Sandy were meant to be and it was his destiny to find her.  
  
So now he was sitting at the kitchen table with his Greyhound bus ticket and a huge backpack filled with food, clothes and necesseties for his trip. He was writing a letter to Ponyboy and Darry his two brothers explaining what he was doing and why he was doing it. He also told them not to worry and not to try and stop him. Sodapop was taking matters into his own hands and running away from home.  
  
He wasn't like a young child who'd been told to go to his room and had rebelled. This was real and true and he had carefully thought it over. He would take a bus from Oklahoma City to Sarasota and once he was there he'd find Sandy and she would realize her mistake in letting him go. He wasn't sure of all the small details, but he was so wrapped up in grief and sadness he hadn't really thought his plan over carefully and right now he firmly believed it would work.  
  
He left the note on the table, hoisted his pack onto his shoulders and locked the door behind him. He pushed his younger brother Ponyboy who would be home from school any minute now out of his mind. He also pushed Darry his older brother who worked two jobs to put food on the table out of his thoughts. He needed to focus on one objective. The immediate one was to get away and the long term goal was to marry Sandy.  
  
Soda walked along the streets to the first bus stop he found. The streets were quiet at this time of day, most kids were either at school or hanging out at a bar and most adults were working diligently to make enough money to pay the rent. The neighbourhood was deserted. Soda passed the time until the next bus came by whistling the tune from "My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean".   
  
Finally he heard the distant roar of a diesel engine and smelled the smoky gasoline fumes of a bus and it turned the corner. He gave the driver his ticket and found a comfortable window seat where he could watch the scenery from.  
  
As the bus pulled away from his neighbourhood, then passed out of his city, his state and everything familiar to him he reflected on his rather short life. It had been filled with relatively little happiness but Soda, always an optimist had made the best of the times using little jokes and stories to help his family through difficult times. Now he was on his own. 


	3. Discoveries

Sorrow  
Chapter 3 ~ Discoveries  
  
A/N: Thanks for reviewing people! I really appreciate it. Sorry for the short chapters I promise they'll get longer. I apologize if you find them out of character, I had to change them a little to fit my fic.  
  
~*~  
  
Ponyboy walked lazily home from school under the shade of majestic oak trees which lined the sidewalks of Laura Avenue. They had brand new tiny leaves which had just unfurled from red buds bursting with summer newness. Warmth, sunlight and happiness was in the air in this brand new season! He took a deep breath in of the clean, fresh air and exhaled slowly through his nose. Since the beginning of this semester he had started walking to and from school along this pretty street with its quaint Victorian mansions with Gingerbread trim and three car garages. This was the American dream!  
  
But when he turned off Laura Avenue with its bright pink magnolia blossoms in the early spring, oak leaves in the summer, acorns in the autumn and fresh white snow in the winter and onto Carmichael Boulevard and crossed Industrial Parkway and the railway tracks he awoke into harsh reality. Small, shabby dwellings with drab, peeling paint and unclipped, wild juniper bushes in the front of them greeted him and gave him a dismal welcoming back to his own neighbourhood. Why couldn't he and Darry and Sodapop live on Laura Avenue in a grand old house? Why did they have to settle for the tiny bungalow? Life was unfair he would just have to face it.  
  
He walked slowly up their driveway with its cracking ashphalt and dusty gardens and set his bags down on the kitchen table after unlocking the door and letting himself in. Inside the house, it was more tastefully decorated and more friendly and inviting. His small family had done the best they could with their budget to make the house pretty.  
  
Just then he realized it was very quiet and dark inside. Where was Sodapop? Shouldn't he be home by now? It wasn't his day to stay light at the gas station for the evening shift. Usually Sodapop brought an aura of happiness and light-heartedness into the house with him and played bright, cheerful music on their second-hand record player. But Soda was definitely not here right now.  
  
Pony's eyes flicked through the kitchen to see if there was some sign Soda had left. His eyes locked onto the note and the table and he grabbed hastily and read it quickly. Pony's jaw dropped in horror. Could it be true? The note said that Sodapop had run away to get Sandy back!  
  
A while back Soda had been moping because Sandy had broken up with him. But after a couple of days he had appeared to get over and become his same happy self again. But if what this note said was true then he was just hiding his true feelings inside. He had gone to get Sandy! Ponybody couldn't believe that Soda had them so fooled. They must not have been very observant...  
  
He had to find Darry. Darry would surely know what to do! They would hop in the car and drive all the way after Sodapop if they had to go to Canada! But deep down in Pony's heart he knew it would not be that simple. 


End file.
